The new Toshiba PMR family consists of two models: the ML8007GAH at 80 GB, and the MK4007GAL at 40 GB. Both drives are heavier than their Hitachi counterparts; we believe that the perpendicular recording technology is the cause, due to requiring different materials. But this still does not explain the rather large difference in spin-up power: Hitachi specifies 1.4 W, while the Toshiba drives are specified at 1.8 W, which represents a 30% difference.

The bright side of the Toshiba drives is performance that leaves the Hitachi drives in the dust. While still mediocre when compared to 3.5" or 2.5" drives, the 18.8 ms average access time and up to 25 MB/s data transfer rates are fast for a 1.8" drive. Even better is the fact that Toshiba achieves these superior numbers by using the same basic ingredients: 4,200 RPM spindle speed and 2 MB cache.

The new Toshiba drives use Giant Magnetoresistive (GMR) heads, which permits higher data density. Thanks to this, they outperform their predecessors, such as the MK3006GAL at 30 GB.